1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the disinfecting, sanitizing, or cleaning of beverage tap faucet interiors and rims and, in particular, to beverage tap plugs designed to be placed inside the faucet opening of a beverage tap in order to more efficiently disinfect, sanitize, or clean the beverage tap faucet interior.
2. The Prior Art
Some of the major issues that arises with beer or beverage taps are that these taps can harbor stale beverage remnants or unsanitary particulates, as well as promote the growth of bacteria and/or various other microorganisms. The prior art generally deals with these issues in one of two ways: 1) the prior art either requires the manual scrubbing and cleaning of the beverage tap every at regular intervals, which can be a tedious and rigorous process, or 2) the prior art discloses plugging up the beverage tap using a tap plug (an example of which is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/125,093, titled Beverage Tap Spout Plug, published Sep. 15, 2005) thus creating a physical barrier between the inside surface of the tap and the outside air. Manually cleaning or scrubbing the beverage tap has the disadvantage of not only being tedious, but once the cleaning is completed, microorganisms can still be reintroduced to the beverage tap from its exposure to air. On the other hand, the problem with the prior art tap plugs is that they do not disinfectant, sanitize, or clean any of the undesirable particulates or microorganisms that are already in the beverage tap. Thus, it is an object of this invention to provide a tap plug that can not only disinfect, sanitize, or clean a beverage tap, but also reduce the reintroduction or growth of more microorganisms.
It is a further object of this invention to perform the above function in a simple and cost effective manner.
These and other objects of the inventions will become apparent upon review of the following claims, specification, and drawings.